Thomas Wright, Deputy Surveyor of the Northern District of America, observed the 1769 transit of Venus successfully from Île aux Coudres in the Saint Lawrence River, Quebec. The quality of his observations was praised by the Astronomer Royal, the Rev'd Neville Maskelyne, in the pages of the Royal Society's Philosophical Transactions. Unbeknownst to both Wright and Maskelyne, the Île aux Coudres transit station was slap in the middle of an ancient meteorite impact site, the Charlevoix crater. This drawing is a recreation of the island site in 1769.

James Ferguson (1710-1776), FRS, a very skilled maker of astronomical instruments and an effective popularizer of the science, wrote several works explaining the phenomenon of the transit of Venus for those with an avocational taste for natural philosophy. He also gave advice on observing and harvesting of data, encouraging his readers to take an active part in studying the phenomena of nature themselves. The plate reproduced here is from our Archives' copy of Astronomy Explained Upon Sir Isaac Newton's Principles..., 6th ed. (London: W. Strahan, J. Rivington and Sons, et al., 1778).